Spiced with humor, Anne Dodson's Field Guide to the Mountain Dulcimer, Book 1 is a beautifully structured and organized guide, taking the beginning student step-by-step through a well-planned sequence of lessons. Friendly and encouraging, Book 1 covers tips on buying and maintaining the instrument, left and right hand techniques, chords, and accompaniment. Exercises, lots of fun tunes to play, and downloadable audio files to support the written instruction all make Field Guide to the Mountain Dulcimer, Book I a lasting resource.
Contents
Dedication
Acknowledgements and Credits
Introduction to Book
Background
How this book works
Audio downloads
Differences between instruments
Tuning
Styles of playing, and what makes this book unique
Buying a dulcimer
Left-handed players
Care and Feeding of Your Dulcimer: how to keep your instrument healthy
Blank TAB for three-string and four-string instruments
Level I – The Basics
Introduction to Level I: a pep talk
Chapter 1: The Basics: body position, fingering, first tunes
Chapter 2: Recognizing Frets: finding your way around the fretboard
Chapter 3: Basic Right Hand Techniques: strumming, picking and plucking
Chapter 4: Playing on All Three Strings: becoming dimensional
Chapter 5: Chords and How They Work on the Dulcimer:
Positions, majors, minors, “undefined” chords and charts
Chapter 6: Combining Chords with Basic Right Hand Techniques:
Putting it all together
Chapter 7: Basic Left Hand Techniques: pull-offs, hammer-ons and slides
Chapter 8: Take a Break – Level I: some tunes for you to play